World Refugee Day 2022

Dear Deputy Prime Minister Marovic, Dear Minister Adzic, ambassador Thimonier, Mrs. Fiyalka, dear colleague Bouchardy, ladies and gentlemen, I am very much honoured to address you on this important occasion, the World Refugee Day.

Every year on 20 June, World Refugee Day is dedicated to people around the globe forced to flee their homes due to wars, persecution, climate change. And on this World Refugee Day, we are reminded that people forced to flee should be treated with dignity, solidarity, and generosity. No one is a refugee by choice and each person forced to flee deserves access to safety and protection. We must work together to ensure no person forced to flee is left behind, so that they can survive and thrive.

When a family or an individual has lost everything, a safe place is critical. For refugees, access to safety underpins everything: it is key to maintaining a sense of dignity and personal security. But access to safety goes beyond the feeling of safety from harm – it is also, among other, a feeling of belonging to a community and being able to give back to those providing refuge.

This is why access to safety is at the heart of this year’s World Refugee Day – for all people forced to flee, wherever they come from and whenever they are forced to flee.

Access to safety is embedded into the 2030 Agenda – a global plan seeking to Leave No One Behind in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

In a world faced with an unprecedented level of global displacement, the Agenda offers a universal and inclusive vision of a sustainable world that cannot be achieving without providing safety and protection to refugees.

Montenegro has continually, and still is, providing access to safety for refugees. As a result, the country has earned a well-deserved reputation for upholding humanitarian principles of refugee protection. Since the break-up of former Yugoslavia to this day, Montenegro has been a place of refuge for people forced to flee, diligently working to ensure effective measures and actions are in place to provide them access to safety.

This approach is not only rooted in the Agenda 2030, but is also an important part of the country’s accession to the European Union, which in turn confirm the synergies of these two processes and how progress in one benefits the other.

With our sister agency UNHCR leading the way in providing comprehensive protection for refugees in Montenegro, on behalf of the UN system I reaffirm our commitment to support the Government in ensuring no one is left behind.

I thank everyone for standing with us in fulfilling this commitment.